Mocking of Christ

Stained glass, or painted glass as it is more accurately called, was one of the most important art forms in Europe in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Windows filled with painted glass provided light and color in cathedrals and churches, and served as important teaching devices, presenting stories from the Bible, the lives of saints, and events in the history of the Church in a graphic way to a largely illiterate population.

The Mocking of Christ almost certainly comes from a series of windows relating the story of the passion of Christ from his entry into Jerusalem to the Resurrection. It recounts the dramatic moment when Christ was handed over by Pilate to soldiers who placed on him a robe and crown of thorns, and mockingly proclaimed, “Hail, King of the Jews.” The drama of this event is heightened by the contrast between the cruel, grotesque faces of the soldiers and the idealized, almost serene pathos of the face of Christ, as well as by the use of intense, rich colors.

This panel was made in Germany in the late 15th century, probably for a church in or near Cologne. The subject, spiritual intensity, facial types, and finely detailed drawing of the panel associate it closely with paintings, drawings, and prints of such late-15th- and early-16th-century German masters as Martin Schongauer, Matthias Grünewald, and Albrecht Dürer.

When many churches along the Franco-German border were secularized during the French Revolution, the panel was removed from its original location and taken to England. There it was purchased by Sir William Jernigan, a Roman Catholic, and incorporated along with 80 other panels of early glass into the windows of his private neo-Gothic chapel at Costessey Hall in Norfolk. When the chapel and hall were demolished in the early 20th century, the glass was removed and sold, subsequently finding its way into many public and private collections.